


Husk

by todisturbtheuniverse



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-05-02
Packaged: 2018-01-21 14:09:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1553171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/pseuds/todisturbtheuniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She deserves a wide berth. Shepard will change your life, whether you like it or not.</p>
<p>Prompted by fragilespark on Tumblr: I'm predictable, but anything James Vega.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Husk

Vega thinks he understands Shepard.

To him, she’s not Commander or Spectre or Hero of the Citadel—she’s just _Lola_ : hot, tough, unstoppable. Hell, her own grave couldn’t hold her. She’s muscle, relentless, and narrowed eyes and a crooked smirk when she’s got him on the ropes. Often enough, even if he hates to admit it. She sees through people like they’re made of glass, and she twists and twists until they become something that bends better.

She deserves a wide berth. Shepard will change your life, whether you like it or not.

So he doesn’t say a single damn thing when, after Thane dies, she starts showing up at all hours down in the cargo bay to beat the shit out of something. He’s never known her to be much of a brawler—she prefers bottle-shooting with Scars—but suddenly she can’t get enough of that sandbag.

She’s ferocious, and he leaves her alone. It’s not like he knows nothing about grief.

But he finds her down there in the dark one night, less than half the lights on, when he can’t sleep—Shepard doesn’t have a monopoly on this ship’s psychological problems. She’s sweating and silent, breath quick and sharp, punctuated by the thuds of her feet and hands.

"Lola," he calls out. "Maybe you should hit something that hits back once in a while."

She turns, raking her dark hair back with her nails, and he wishes he hadn’t called out—wishes he had stayed in bed and never found her here. He doesn’t like knowing people as they really are, when they come unfrayed and messy at the edges, when they stray from the role he’s silently assigned them.

Shepard is relentless, but he’s never seen her angry. He’s used to a smirk, not a sneer.

"Okay, jarhead," she spits. He’s never felt so offended by the word before, like he’s been somehow reduced. "Let’s dance."

And it is a dance, when she hits; she’s graceful in battle in a way she never is on the dance floor. She lashes out with a viciousness he didn’t know she had and suddenly, it seems like the best thing to do is to get under her skin, the way she did him—so he bides his time, avoids her quick strikes, absorbs some others, waits for her to get sloppy. She’s human. She can’t run forever.

Finally, she skips back. With a little growl of frustration in her voice, her fists still raised, she demands, “Hit  _back_ , for fuck’s sake—”

And he catches her, finally, kicks her in the stomach just right. She’s not braced for it, doesn’t flow around it; she lets out a puff of surprise and falls back, turning automatically to land on her arms instead of her back. He follows her down, holds her to the ground with a firm knee in her lower back, drags her flailing arms to where they’re pinned and useless in his hands.

"You have to stop this," he tells her.

"Stop  _what_?” she yelps, struggling. “I  _yield_ , get—”

"You know what,” he snaps back. “Wake up, Shepard. Everybody can see you’re sleepwalking through this.  _I_ can see it.”

"I’m not—"

He presses her into the mat. She squeaks. “Don’t do that. Don’t lie. We’re the only ones here.”

She stops struggling. She breathes in, a rasp, and he lets her go, scooting back until he can brace himself against the Kodiak. His nose is bleeding, he realizes.

She gets up slowly—painfully, he thinks, like unfolding herself costs her something. She looks down at him and her mouth is soft again, yielding, not yanked unwilling into hasty expressions.

She walks away, across the hangar, and comes back with a tissue. “Here,” she says, her voice husky and familiar again, and sits down beside him.

For a while they stay there, shoulder pressed to shoulder, quietly recovering. He sops up the blood until it stops.

"Sleepwalking, huh?" she says finally—gently, the way he’s gotten used to.

"Everyone knows you’re grieving," he says, a little awkward now that he isn’t muscling her to the ground. "Wouldn’t matter to us if you did it out in the open. Might matter to you, though."

"Yeah? Why’s that?"

"You know what it does to you when you keep it locked up. Changes you. Way I see it, galaxy needs Shepard right now, not the husk beating the shit out of a sandbag."

It’s all too heavy for him, but sometimes things need to be said. And Shepard gives so much to all of them, whether they want it or not, finds their wounds and knits them up; makes a guy want to do the same for her. No reason she’d need to lean on him—what’s he to her, anyway, but some dumb jarhead?—but one more friend couldn’t hurt.

He looks sideways at her. She breathes in, holds it for seven seconds, lets it out.

"Kelly died," she says, her eyes squinted up. "Kelly Chambers, she was my—my yeoman. Back when I first woke up. Used to have her for this shit, and Cerberus gunned her down on the Citadel just for taking care of me. And by the time I heard, I…I couldn’t even cry. Then all of a sudden, tonight, I dreamed about her, and…" She shakes her head. "Thought I’d run out of grief."

"That’s the thing," he says. "You never really run out."

She looks at him, in that way he’s used to, like he’s glass and she sees what’s inside.

"Wish I could," she whispers. "Bet you do, too."

He can’t really argue that, but it’s better, at least, to sit down here with her head on his shoulder and be in pain where someone else can see it.


End file.
